One easily gets the impression the experts believe the Arctic sea ice trend will continue its downward trend over the coming years. This surprises me. Myself I think the Arctic will actually recover over the next decade or two. I’m convinced enough to bet $1000 on this. I believe that the average September sea extent for the years 2017 – 2022 will be greater than the mean September 2007-2012 sea ice extent.

Would you advise me against making such a bet? Would you bet? Surely the science can provide a probability here. Your short comment on this would be very much appreciated.
Kind regards

Those who replied are printed in bold, and I’d like to thank them for taking the time to respond, particularly Dr. Dirk Notz and Dr. Andrey Proshutinsky. They both took the time to provide a real reply, see here and here.

Three of the 4 replying advised against betting the Arctic would melt, warning there is too much natural variability involved. Dr. Andrey Proshutinsky even hinted that the Arctic may in fact just do the very opposite.

Mojib Latif also sent a brief reply advising against a bet, citing “natural decadal variability”. He wrote:

I don’t bet. There is of course natural decadal variability which superimposes the long-term downward sea ice extent trend, but this decadal variability is hard to predict.”

Lisa at the NSIDC also sent a reply, providing two links: here and here. Scientists at the NSIDC also declined to bet.

The other eight scientists did not even reply. It seems some like shouting from the rooftops the sky is falling, but suddenly get real quiet when asked to put money on it.

In summary, no one expressed any interest in accepting the above bet and not one even advised anyone to accept it. Result: From a science with a “97% consensus” and “99% certainty”, 0% of the scientists are ready to bet on it.

Three of the 4 scientists who did reply say it is not possible to predict the Arctic sea ice over the next 8 years (yet many scientists claim that predicting the Arctic 50, 100 or 200 years into the future is 99% slam dunk?).

Of course we can understand scientists’ reluctance to bet on Arctic sea ice. But on the other hand why are so many of these scientists insisting that the rest of us bet our modern prosperity on their models being right (when obviously they themselves don’t even trust them 8 years out)?

20 responses to “Science With “9720 Consensus” and “9920 Certainty” Sees 020 Of Its Scientists Willing To Bet On It!”

Pierre – you say “It all smacks of a sham to me.” Hmmm… Let me think about that for a moment…

Yeah… Yeah… Hmmm… OK, I agree and agree absolutely!

Now to be serious—what frosts and frustrates me is that those who are agitating for us betting our modern prosperity on their claims, appear to be exempt from the regulations they promulgate and will never (?) be held accountable for their failure.

I notice that Wadhams has recently attempted to go beyond his VERY FIRM promise of an ‘ice-free’ Arctic no later than 2016. Here he is about 12 days ago.

“The evidence suggests that September will be ice-free very soon, and that ail increase so that within five years or so we could be seeing an ice-free Arctic for up to four months in the summer and much thinner ice for the rest of the year too.”

Professor Wadhams will report back his findings to a special meeting of the Royal society, convened to discuss the issue.

He now seems to think no one noticed his new attempt to push forward his very firm prediction of 2016 latest. I have no problem with someone changing their prediction but you have to at least say “I got it wrong, here is my new prediction.” Or words to that effect. The man is an alarmist charlatan indeed.

[A] WADHAMS: Yes, I think we have. A few years ago, I predicted that the summer sea ice–that’s the September minimum–would go to zero by about 2015. And at that stage, it was only really one model that agreed with me. My prediction was based on observations from satellites and from measurements from submarines of ice thickness, which I’ve been doing from British subs, and Americans have been doing the same from American subs. And the trend was so clear and so definite that it would go to zero by 2015 that I felt it was safe to make that prediction, and I still think it is, because next year, although this year we don’t expect things to retreat much further than last, next year will be an El Niño year, which is a warmer year, and I think it will go to zero.

But, like his fellow travellers, won’t put his money where his mouth is.
The concept of a ‘sportsmans bet’ is obviously alien to the woozle, as he thinks $1000 is significant.
Hint: It’s not the money, Dr. Connelly. (for a Doctor he is)

Recently Semenow & Latif tried to explain the early Arctic warming (ETCW during 1920-1940), in: The Cyrosphere (2012, 1231-1237), by “investigating the sensitivity of Arctic winter surface air temperature to sea ice during 1875-2008 by means of simulations with an atmospheric general circulation model (+ SST and sea ice concentration), producing as featureless result.” Thus internal multi-decadal fluctuations is the potential candidate to explain the ETCW in the Arctic.”
Latif et al mentioned nothing about the sea ice extent briefly before ETCW started as referred to in a previous comment (NTZ, 28. Sept. “Of the Arctic’s…”): “Ocean currents impact the Arctic” is a matter that could have been much better understood if the extraordinary winter temperature jump in the Arctic since winter 1918/19, which subsequently heated the Northern Hemisphere until winter 1939/40 had been explained since long. One reason could have been the extraordinary sea ice extends in the North Atlantic in summer 1917, the only case since 1900; more at: http://www.arctic-heats-up.com/ .

Referring to “natural decadal variability” and “multi-decadal fluctuations” can be read as: I do not know.

would love to see William Connolley take the bet….after all this is small change to him according to what he said. Why not take the easy money? My guess is that he is a coward and knows that we have little idea what to expect between now and 2022.

Pierre, send your betting invitation to the Norwegian Bjerkesenteret. Last week there was another alarming piece about the Arctic sea ice on the weather site YR.no where a scientist of the Bjerkesenteret was quoted. He had been in Actic waters several times and had noticed that the ice had become quite rotten :).